Customer Reviews

Dreaming of Hitler

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Like most collections of personal essays, this is a mixed bag. Daphne Merkin is an acquired taste, a writer one either enjoys or hates, and all the other contrarian cliches. She writes well, though her style can suggest the word processor a bit too much. It is susceptible to the clots of over-felicity that make one nostalgic for a time when writing was more physical work. For instance, she praises her friend Ida Fink for writing "scrupulously unsentimental" stories, a pleasing phrase until one gets to wondering what a scrupulously sentimental story might be. But she is never less than readable and can turn some very handsome sentences. Her subject matter is more apt to be controversial than her writing skill. Merkin is best known for an article on her long fascination with sexual spanking, and one's opinion of this article is likely to color one's impressions of the book as a whole. I wasn't one of the people who thought that it was either the beginning or the end of Western civilization; although it made me curious while I was reading it, I was surprised at how little it stayed with me afterward. For all the spanking fantasies, Merkin's everyday concerns are quite normal. She loves her daughter, worries about getting fat, refuses to go to class reunions, obsesses about lost belongings, is tempted to steal overpriced trinkets in department stores, and gets crushes on rock stars. Heavens to Murgatroyd. (One or two women's-magazine-style essays could have been cut out and replaced with more of Merkin's interesting book reviews.)But what saves Merkin from banality is the absence of a sense of entitlement to accompany the late-capitalist introspection. She can actually sound much like a feminist Andrei Codrescu; although she takes an interest in sleaze of all kinds, she has a European impatience with self-pity, witness her hatchet job on Claire Bloom and Philip Roth. Merkin is a first-generation American and was raised Orthodox in a family of six children. Her musings on her Jewishness are often enriched with a real sense of danger: the arguments over a Jewish-American's authenticity in claiming the haunted European psychology are hard to separate from those over her right to relax into the Anglo-American standard of living without the associated guilt. (This may be the kind of book Margaret Atwood doesn't like.) Merkin does not apologize for living on this fault line. It inspires her most intelligent and also her most self-indulgent writing, as in the title essay. One can respect Daphne Merkin a lot for her "If anyone takes a spill, it'll be me" attitude to disclosure. Maybe she should get out a bit more, after all.

Merkin is to be admired for her wit, honesty, and refined ability to soul-search. The best essays are those that concern her life experiences--those focussing on a particular movie or a book are interesting, but not as involving, as her stellar ability to confess and to comprehend what she confesses. Like all very good writers, her honesty hits a nerve, and it was interesting, and saddening to me to see the irritation of a few shocked readers on Amazon. A Freudian would say she'd undone their repressions. But that's often the price of being an honest writer.

Ms. Merkin dares to bare her soul and takes on a lot of PC thinking. How is this "anti-woman"? In fact, she is shows us the sort of courage and bravery that makes a good feminist!

Part of the issue revolves around the fact that she openly discusses fetishes and sexual identity issues that the PC feminists wish didn't exist. In their vain attempts to crush her into shame and silence, they reveal themselves to be no better than their twisted twins on the right.

As for Ms. Merkin: You go girl!

Daphne Merkin is unfailingly interesting, no matter what the topic. I think it unfortunate that there are people who condemn her as 'antifeminist' or 'antiwomen', just because she risks speaking her mind. What a shame that there are women who choose to avoid all considered or thoughtful discussions on some of the matters she writes about with such intelligence. I will read anything that she writes.

I'm afraid Ms. Merkin is a bit anti-women (because anti-feminist), but she writes well. If you are familiar with her sometimes entertaining and gossipy New Yorker pieces, you'll get the same stuff here. A good beach read, but if you are committed to fighting anti-feminism, this book isn't for you.

I haven't finished this yet, but, so far, it is excellent and I highly recommend it. Very well-written, entertaining, and thought-provoking.
Looking forward to more books (fiction and non-) by this author

I'd dream of a better book if I was Daphne. Its incredible what sells for literature these days. This book is the equivalent of trashy TV-Talkshows but with an overabundance of fancy words. Don't waste your money. Buy it on the street for .25 cents, then maybe you'll get your money's worth. Useless and not even entertaining. You would get more mental stimulation counting your socks on a friday night than reading this book. Daphne, get a new therapist, and write something everyone would enjoy not just your friends.

I was rather appalled at the author's utter lack of refinement. I found her book frequently offensive and vulgar. Her "open" discussion of sexual perversion and other delights is right up-to-the moment, but trendiness is no indicator of literary value. Her witty ramblings are as appealing, and about as nutritional, as cotton candy.